Sprint Wants to Get in Your Car

"By 2016, there will be 100 million connected cars on the road," a Sprint executive told Popular Mechanics at the LA Auto Show, and his feeling of not wanting to miss the technological bandwagon was palpable.

In all fairness, Sprint isn't a complete newbie to the telematics game-- their software has been branded as "Uconnect" in the new Dodge Ram pickup and the SRT Viper überbeast-- but they stand to gain whole lot of clout (and dough) if they can penetrate the manufacturer market in significant numbers and avoid the interface debacles faced by systems like the controversial MyFord Touch.

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Based on their press conference at the LA Auto Show, Sprint promises the usual car control features like remote vehicle start, in-car wi-fi hotspots, Siri-like voice recognition, and infotainment embedded with data like sports scores and stock updates. But Sprint says they'll be the first to offer one-stop shopping in the mobile integration world, offering scalable brand and platform agnostic electronics solutions which seamlessly merge your cell phone and related apps to the car's interface.

Can they succeed? If the old adage about "who you know" is really the key to success, Sprint has a few major auto manufacturers they'll need to cozy up with in order ensure that Velocity can be found in a car near you.